4537 
\ 

>y 1 



ESTABLISHED 1889 



THE OLDEST AND LARGEST REVIEW IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 

DEVOTED TO POETRY AND DRAMA 




TITLE RBOISTBRBD AS A TRADE HARK 




DEQUINCEY'S DREAM-FUGUE 



By 



LUCILE PRICE LEONARD 







I 



STUDIES IN LITERATURE ^ 



^ 



A manual of English Literature 
brief, inspiring, and interesting 

A HISTORY OF 

ENGLISH LITERATURE 

By ROBERT HUNTINGTON FLETCHER, Ph. D. 

Professor of English Literature, Grinnell College 
Cloth, 12mo, $1.25 net 



Professor Fletcher's History of English Literature lives up to 
all the requirements of a good textbook on the subject. It contains 
excellent historical backgrounds, interesting biographies of the 
authors, and admirable criticisms of their works. Most remarkable of 
all is that it combines these three elements in an extremely readable 
manner. 



V' 



WHAT EDUCATORS SAY 
ABOUT IT 

"I wish to express my satisfaction with Fletcher's History of 
English Literature. It is the best work of its sort I have ever ex- 
amined and I shall use and recommend it." 

Allan H. Gilbert, Cornell University 

"Your History of English Literature by Robert H. Fletcher is 
admirably complete and readable. It should by all means, be con- 
sidered by those instructors and teachers who need a book that 
covers the whole period i;n a well balanced and scholarly way, but 
without loss of human interest." 

A. C. F. Beebewrotz, Prof, of Eng., Syracuse University 

"The History of English Literature is a work of very high merit; 
this is to be expected from a scholar of Fletcher's ability. " 

President H. N. MacCracken, Fassar College 



RICHARD g: badger - PUBLISHER - BOSTON 



K 



DEQUINCEY'S DREAM-FUGUE* 

By Lucile Price Leonard 

WE had been reading DeQuincey. Not for days, 
not for weeks had we been reading hira, but 
for months. Herein Hes the charm of living 
far away behind the hills, in the backwater of 
the world — one has time and inclination to 
live with books; and we three, the Master and 
Mistress of the Library, and I, had been living with DeQuincey. 
Christmas barely had extinguished her candles when the 
Master one day suggested that he should introduce to us hi& old 
friend Thomas DeQuincey. Up to that time, I had had only the 
most formal of bowing acquaintances with this changeling of 
literature, and I welcomed eagerly such a presentation as I well 
knew the brilliant and scholarly Master could give. So, while 
winter sunshine poured through the western windows of the 
library, making a golden summer there, we read DeQuincey; when 
the chill of early spring yet demanded a wood fire "of evenings," 
we read DeQuincey; when the magnolia buds began to show tips 
of white, we left the library and the wood fire for the veranda and 
garden-fragrances; but — we still read DeQuincey. 

We did not begin with Volume I and read the entire series, 
volume by volume. That was never the Master's way. With a 
delicate perception of value and sequence, he led and we followed, 
step by step, until the wee "Druid wight" became our daily 
companion, allowed to steal in and out without remark or ap- 
parent observation, himself an eager listener, enjoying with 
us our laughter and our tears, as dear to us as a member of the 
family. 

At last, one late afternoon in May, having drifted from the 
prose flights of our elaborate little genius, to literature about 
him, we found ourselves in the closing chapters of that just and 
sympathetic appreciation which David Masson has entitled 
quite simply DeQuincey. 

*In giving a description of a fugue in music, I have purposely kept tlie wording 
of my authorities, even when I have not quoted literally. Besides Goetschius and Prout, 
I have used Grove's Dictionary as being authoritative and easy of access. L. P. L. 



^OI.A505719 



2 DEQUINCEY'S DREAM-FUGUE 

With genuine delight, we surveyed with him, the gorgeous 
labyrinths through which we had found our leisurely and admiring 
way, dissenting mildly at times from his opinions, but, on the 
whole, agreeing with his generous estimates until, in his review 
of The E^iglish Mail Coach, we suddenly found ourselves face to 
face with this: 

"I cannot say that this 'dream-fugue,' which is offered as 

a lyrical finale to the little series, in visionary coherence with the 

preceding pieces, accomplishes its purpose very successfully 

* * * The artifice is too apparent, and the meaning is all 

but lost in a mere vague of music. " 

At my exclamation of surprise, the Master looked up with 
an amused but sympathetic smile. 

"David Masson knew nothing about fugues," I declared 
with deep conviction, "and he never dreamed a dream in his life. " 

"Write me an appreciation of our beloved Dream-Fugue," 
I begged, "that my indignant feelings may be soothed." 

"Write it yourself," the Master laughed, "since you take 
it so greatly to heart." 

Then he added seriously, "I should be glad to see you do 
it, for you may be sure that when DeQuincey writes a dream-fugue 
he understands exactly what he has undertaken. The objection 
cannot be made that he was no musician, nor can the musical 
form of his fugue be pronounced simply a curious coincidence. So 
sensitive was he to the influence of music, so exquisite was his 
enjoyment of it, that he tells us in his Additions to the Confessions 
of An English Opium Eater of a luxury provided by his mother 
during his Manchester school-days whose 'anticipated pleasure 
turned out a total failure.' This was nothing less than a piano, 
and an instructor whose efforts were to assist him in playing the 
instrument. His own account is almost tragic: 

" 'Too soon I became aware,' he writes, 'that to the deep 
voluptuous enjoyment of music, absolute passiveness in the hearer 
is indispensable. Gain what skill you please, nevertheless 
activity, vigilance, anxiety must always accompany an elaborate 
effort of musical execution; and so far is that from being recon- 
cilable with the entrancement and lull essential to the true 
fruition of music that even if you should suppose a vast piece of 
mechanism capable of executing a whole oratorio, but requiring, 
at intervals, a co-operating impulse from the foot of the auditor, 
even that, even so much as an occasional touch of the foot, would 
utterly undermine all your pleasure.' 



LUCILE PRICE LEONARD 3 

"Notice the words he has used to express his enjoyment — 
Voluptuous,' 'entrancement.' He gave himself up to it, body, 
mind, and soul, as we are accustomed to think only musical 
geniuses can do. The slightest movement was enough to destroy 
his pleasure entirely. 

"You can recall from our reading this winter how full of 
musical imagery, references to music, descriptions of music, and 
descriptions in terms of music are DeQuincey's works. Nor are 
they the words of a layman. From his essay on Rhetoric, I can 
quote you a favorite passage of mine showing his understanding 
of fugue : 

" 'In them first,' (he is referring here to Sir Thomas Browne 
and Jeremy Taylor) — 'In them first, and perhaps (if we except 
occasional passages in the German, John Paul Richter) in them 
only, are the two opposite forces of eloquent passion and rhetorical 
fancy brought into an exquisite equilibrium, approaching, receding 
— attracting, repelling — blending, separating — chasing and chased, 
as in a fugue.' 

"He even goes so far in his essay on Style as to hold up the 
whole English nation for censure, speaking of 'their obstinate 
obtuseness in regard to one of the most effective of the Fine Arts' 
with delightful and vigorous candor. I may be able to quote 
the entire passage if you are not too particular about exact word- 
ing. On the whole, we might better be exact and have DeQuin- 
cey's own words, if you will be good enough to get the book." 
At the familiar touch of the Master's hands, the small 
volume seemed to fall open at the proper place: 

* * * " 'We feel ashamed for the obstinate obtuseness of 
our country in regard to one, and the most effective, of the 
Fine Arts. It will be understood that we speak of music' " 

Omitting the passage on painting, sculpture, and poetry, the 
Master continued: 

" '* * * -^g cannot be allowed to suppose any general 
defect of sensibility as a cause of obtuseness with regard to music. 
So little, however, is the grandeur of this divine Art suspected 
amongst us generally, that a man will write an essay deliberately 
for the purpose of putting on record his own preference of a song 
to the most elaborate music of Mozart; he will glory in his shame, 
and though speaking in the character of one confessing to a 
weakness, will evidently view himself in the light of a candid man, 
laying bare a state of feeling which is natural and sound, opposed 
to a class of false pretenders who, whilst servile to rules of artists, 



4 DEQUINCEY'S DREAM-FUGUE 

in reality contradict their own musical instincts, and feel little 
or nothing of what they profess. Strange that even the analogy 
of other Arts should not open his eyes to the delusion he is en- 
couraging! A song, an air, a tune — that is, a short succession of 
notes revolving rapidly upon itself, how could that, by possibility, 
offer a field of compass sufficient for the development of great 
musical effects? The preparation pregnant with the future, the 
remote correspondence, the questions, as it were, which to a deep 
musical sense, are asked in one passage, and answered in another; 
the iteration and ingemination of a given effect, moving through 
subtle variations that sometimes disguise the theme, sometimes 
fitfully reveal it, sometimes throw it out tumultuously to the 
daylight, — these and ten thousand forms of self-conflicting 
musical passion — what room could they find, what opening for 
utterance in so limited a field as an air or song? A hunting box, 
a park lodge, may have a forest grace and the beauty of appro- 
priateness; but what if a man should match such a bauble against 
the Pantheon, or against the Minsters of York and Strasburg? 
A repartee may, by accident, be practically effective; it has been 
known to crush a party scheme, and an oration of Cicero's, or of 
Burke's, could have done no more; but what judgment would 
match the two against each other as developments of power? 
Let him who finds the maximum of his musical gratification in a 
song, be assured by that one fact, that his sensibility is rude and 
undeveloped. Yet exactly upon this level is the ordinary state 
of musical feeling throughout Great Britain; and the howling 
wilderness of the psalmody in most parish churches of the land, 
countersigns the statement. * * * Jn this cherished obtuse- 
ness as to a pleasure so important for human life, we find a second 
reason for quarrelling with the civilization of our Country. At 
the summit of Civilization in other points, she is here yet uncul- 
tivated and savage.'" 

"What a magnificent passage!" I exclaimed. 

"And how applicable to the musical form under discussion," 
replied the Master. "See how deep his insight is into large and 
complicated musical structure — 'the preparation pregnant with 
the future, the remote correspondence, the questions, as it were, 
which to a deep musical sense are asked in one passage, and 
answered in another.' Then he speaks of the 'ingemination of a 
given effect, moving through subtle variations' — words luminous 
with comprehension of the middle section of a fugue. 

"Some day we will gather DeQuincey's knowledge and love 



LUCILE PRICE LEONARD 5 

end use of music into one volume for our own pleasure and refer- 
ance — yes, and you shall write an article on that too!" 
And this time, I was the one who smiled. 

During the long warmth of the quiet May days that followed, 
my mind could not be appeased. It thought and remembered — 
especially it remembered. And the whole of its remembering 
faculty seemed to be filled with one picture: — 

A library, lighted by the sun's afterglow and the flicker of a 
dying wood fire. Close to the window, catching the fast-fading 
light upon the pages of his book, sits the Master of the Library. 
His voice, in sympathy with thoughts and words before him, 
reflects every emotion of the great Dream-Fugue — rises in exulta- 
tion as we 'sweep with bridal rapture over the Campo Santo of 
the cathedral graves;' rings like a silver trumpet as, "A thousand 
times, amongst the phantoms of sleep, have I seen thee entering 
the gates of the golden dawn;" sinks into silence with, "the end- 
less resurrections of His love." Side by side, in the gathering 
shadows, sit the white-haired Mistress and I, both spell-bound. 
Twilight deepens into darkness. No sound disturbs our dream- 
haunted silence. Only the voice of the winter night-wind rises to 
reiterate "the endless resurrections of His love." 

Upon this memory of an utter comprehension jarred David 
Masson's remark: 

"I cannot say that this 'dream-fugue' * * * accom- 
plishes its purpose very successfully." 

A pent-up, life-long horror of critics arose and took pos- 
session of me. Even when a child, I had been teased to frenzy 
by what I considered critical misunderstandings. In later years, 
my library was, to me, a symphony orchestra, each musician 
playing his instrument as became that instrument and his own 
temperament. Why fault the slender flute for its inability to 
lift a volume of tone beyond that of the violin.? Why waive 
away the kettle-drums and trumpets because their voices are not 
the mystery of the wood-winds? Succeeding in this — with our 
orchestra so maimed, no 'velvet flute-note would ever fall down 
pleasantly upon the bosom of our harmony,' 

"As if a petal from a wild- rose blown 

Had fluttered down upon that pool of tone;" 



6 DEQUINCEY'S DREAM-FUGUE 

no fanfare would send our hero into battle, nor greet him when 
he returned victorious. And when the first violins had learned 
the deep tones of the double-bass, who would sing the love songs 
for the waiting world? 

Thus I fretted when critics lamented the "limitations" of 
a Shelley, of a Browning, especially of a Macaulay whose vivid 
word-painting and inimitable story-telling have been depreciated 
by certain "intellectuals," because, forsooth, he lacks philosophy. 
They did not pause to consider that the very qualities they 
wished to bestow would destroy the existing beauties. Add to a 
Macaulay the qualities of a Coleridge, if you will; and, accom- 
plishing the impossible, lose forever the clearest trumpeter of our 
English Symphony. 

Musing, I grew contemplative. DeQuincey's treasure- 
houses, like the art treasure-houses of Europe, reveal their con- 
tents only upon a fair exchange. Was David Masson to blame 
that no Master of a Library, half poet, half musician, had read 
DeQuincey's Dream-Fugue to him, in the twilight of a December 
evening.^ that he could not carry to DeQuincey the wealth of 
dreaming, and fugue-making.^ Could it be that (quoting De- 
Quincey, himself) "not the t6 apprehensible, but the to appre- 
hendens" was "in fault?" 

"The artifice is too apparent," says David Masson, "and 
the meaning all but lost in a mere vague of music." Now, when 
he spoke of a "too apparent artifice," David Masson was far from 
intending a complimentary criticism. How singular, then, that 
the words "apparent artifice" should recall to the fugue-lover's 
mind the clear and concise setting forth of the laws governing 
fugue. 

The main idea of a fugue, we are told, is of one voice con- 
trasting with others. It must be conceived in a definite number 
of parts or voices. The so-called "cyclical forms" are primitive, 
— the sonata may readily be traced to folk-song; but the fugue is 
artificial, directly descending from contrapuntal experiments of 
mediaeval monks. Indeed, so intentionally "apparent" is the 
"artifice" in a fugue that, not, "a fugue," but a composition 
written "in fugue" would be the better expression. 

The fugue, Percy Goetschius tells us, is a strict and serious 
contrapuntal form, involving certain special conditions and 
limitations. It has seriousness of character and manipulation, 
and lacks something in freedom of detail. The question before 



LUCILE PRICE LEONARD 7 

us, then, is not whether Professor Masson fancies the Dream- 
Fugue; but, did DeQuincey really write a Dream-Fugue upon a 
subject of importance taken from the previous chapters of the 
English Mail Coach, and did he write it in such a manner as to 
"successfully accomplish his purpose?" What are the special 
conditions and limitations governing the fugue? Do the same 
conditions and limitations govern the Dream-Fugue? Let us see. 

"Of all existing musical forms" says Ebenezer Prout, "that 
of the fugue, as we find it in the works of a great genius, such as 
J. S. Bach, is certainly one of the most perfect, and, to an earnest 
musician, one of the most interesting." 

"The whole organic growth of the fugue is developed from 
one or two themes, often of extreme simplicity, and according to 
certain artistic principles and well-understood methods of pro- 
cedure. Unless, therefore, the hearer of a fugue is able to trace 
its developments, he can derive but little pleasure from it as a 
composition. " 

The most general divisions of a fugue (divisions quite pro- 
found enough for our present inquiry) are the exposition, the 
development, and the conclusion. A strict fugue develops each 
division symmetrically. A free fugue is irregular in plan or de- 
tail. Being the consummate form of the polyphonic style of 
composition, the fugue requires a mastery of all the devices of 
counterpoint as well as inventive and constructive genius. We 
have, therefore, a musical movement worthy of our careful 
consideration, one in which a definite number of voices combine 
in stating and developing a single theme, with the important 
addition that the interest be cumulative. 

This "single theme" occupies the attention of the first 
division of the fugue — the exposition. Here, at the very outset, 
the theme or subject must be clearly presented. It must be of a 
character to arrest and hold attention whenever and wherever 
heard; long enough to contain a definite idea, not too long for the 
memory to retain perfectly. It must be thoroughly impressed 
upon the attention, and, like the hero of melodrama, its nature 
and characteristics must be understood thoroughly before the 
second act begins. Masters of fugue accomplish this in various 
ways. Bach, in his big organ fugue in G Minor, which the 
Dream-Fugtie resembles, has stated his subject in the soprano, 
answered it in the alto, restated it in the tenor, and re-answered 
it in the bass, — the subjects being proposed in the tonic, answered 
by practically the same theme in the dominant. 



8 DEQUINCEY'S DREAM-FUGUE 

The Dream-Fugue, DeQuincey writes, is founded on the 
preceding theme of "sudden death." Is such a theme one to 
"arrest and hold attention?" is it "serious" enough for fugue 
development? Let Section II of The English Mail-Coach answer 
for us. It is this theme, then, a theme fulfilling every technical 
requirement, which forms DeQuincey's exposition. Tumul- 
tuously and unaccompanied, the statement of the subject is 
made: 

"Passion of sudden death! that once in youth I read and in- 
terpreted by the shadows of thy averted signs!" 

"Rapture of panic!" cries the voice of the response. 

"Ah, vision too fearful," breathes the subject in an under- 
tone of agony. 

"Epilepsy so brief of horror," shudders the response. 

With one last sentence of passionate questioning, the ex- 
position closes, — an exposition perfect in theme and perfect in 
musical form. 



The middle section or development of a composition written 
in fugue consists of a series of "episodes" usually founded on 
the main subject (perhaps on a counter subject) interspersed with 
entries of the subject in various new situations, or guises. 

These episodes have been called a contrapuntal web, into 
which have been woven, at intervals, now in one position, now 
in another, the entire subject or some portion of it. 

The subject might well be likened to a wondrous jewel of 
the Orient, for which its owner can find no setting worthy of its 
beauty; and each episode, to a separate setting wrought with 
increasing love and labor. Turning the the stone first in this 
way, then in that, the owner tries its beauty against his patterns 
of gold and silver and platinum. More and more elaborate grow 
the settings as he works with anxious care. More and more in- 
tricate grows each new design until, at last, he places his beloved 
gem with all its facets to the light, in the very center of a setting 
inwrought of gold and silver and platinum, revealing all the 
beauties of each discarded setting in one masterpiece of combina- 
tion. 

In the development of the G Minor Fugue, Bach uses eight 
of these episodal settings into which he enters his subject. He 
enters it in the key of B flat; twice in D Minor; in F Major, G 
Minor, C minor and E flat. Each episode reveals new contra- 



LUCILE PRICE LEONARD 9 

puntal intricacies, until into the eighth one, he introduces the 
subject, again in the key of G Minor, and in that key, for the 
first time since it was announced in the exposition, in the soprano 
voice. With this entry, the conclusion begins, heralding the 
climax by a return to the original key. An exciting aspect of the 
jewel and its setting now presents itself as the tenor and alto 
voices rapidly take up the theme. Finally, with all the deep 
vibrant power of the massive organ bass, "the masterpiece of 
combination" is before us in all its cumulative splendor. 

Such care has DeQuincey shown in the technique of the 
middle section of his Dream-Fugue that episodes and entries of 
the subject would be impossible to mistake. Not content with 
this, perhaps fearing there might arise a David Masson, he has 
actually numbered his episodes. There are five of them — four 
in the development and one in the conclusion. 

Our jewel, then, is the theme of sudden death, and the five 
episodes are the settings arranged for it, by the loving hand of 
Thomas DeQuincey. 

"Lo, it is summer," he begins, "almighty summer!" Tran- 
quilly he arranges his first design, — an ocean "verdant as a 
savannah," upon which rides a "fairy pinnace." "Young 
women how lovely, young men how noble" dance together "a- 
midst music and incense," "amidst blossoms from forests and 
gorgeous corymbi from vintages, amidst natural carolling, and 
the echoes of sweet girlish laughter. " Among the dancing figures 
may be discerned the "unknown lady from the dreadful vision." 
All this joyous loveliness is "slowly drifting towards us" — us 
upon the English three-decker. Against this background, the 
theme flashes forth like an evil star: 

"Was our shadow the shadow of death?" "Where are the 
lovely women that danced beneath the awning of flowers and 
clustering corymbi.'' Whither are fled the noble young men that 
danced with them.' Answer there was none." 

The movement grows agitated as we enter the second episode: 
"Sail on the weather-beam! Down she comes upon us!" 
No more summer here; but "maddening billows and mighty 
mists and a terrible sea shaken with gathering wrath." Here, 
for the first time, DeQuincey uses a counterpoint of arches and 
long cathedral aisles borrowed from the tree-lined avenue in 
"The Vision of Sudden Death." Down this "Gothic aisle" 
races a frigate, amongst whose shrouds stands the lady of the 



lo DEQUINCEY'S DREAM-FUGUE 

vision. "Off she forges without a shock," and is "borne away 
into desert spaces of the sea." As she flies past us, "rising, 
sinking, trembhng, praying" the howling gale shrieks back to us 
the theme of sudden death, "until at last, upon a sound from afar 
of malicious laughter and mockery, all was hidden forever in 
driving showers." 

"Sweet funeral bells from some incalculable distance" 
awaken us to the third episode. "The morning breaks. A young 
girl crowned with a garland of flower runs in panic along a solitary 
strand. No warning can save her from the treacherous sands." 
Faster and faster, in frenzy of haste runs the counterpoint until 
in the early twilight, the fair young head sinks into darkness and 
only one white arm rises above her grave, "tossing, faltering, 
rising, clutching * * * uttering her dying hope and then 
uttering her dying despair." 

We weep with DeQuincey — "to the memory of those that 
die before the dawn, and by the treachery of earth, our Mother." 

Suddenly the funeral bells are hushed. A roar echoes from 
the mountains. "Is it strife.? Is it victory?" With the rush of 
a Niagara we are swept into a veritable whirlpool of counterpoint, 
a counterpoint including in its dizzy structure every important 
theme in the entire Mail-Coach series, demonstrating at every 
point the "visionary coherence" of the Dream-Fugue with the 
"preceding pieces." 

The English Mail-Coach in Lombard street, with its horses 
and men dressed in "laurels and flowers, oak-leaves and ribbons," 
has dreamed itself into a triumphal car, and we are "amongst 
companions crowned with laurel." 

In the second paragraph of "Section the First," we are told: 

"The mail-coach it was that distributed over the face of the 
land, like the opening of apocalyptic vials, the heart-shaking news 
of Trafalgar, of Salamanca, of Vittoria, of Waterloo. * * * 
The victories of England in this stupendous contest rose of them- 
selves as natural Te Deums to heaven." From the same section, 
under the heading, "Going Down with Victory," are taken the 
themes of great darkness and crowds, of trampling horses and 
golden lights ("Bengal lights"), and a word to be carried to 
distant cities. "Section the Second" gives us our impatience of 
delay, our headlong pace, the illimitable aisle, the female child, 
the trumpet (the guard's horn which DeQuincey failed to reach), 
the frozen bas-relief (the immovable horror of the young man in 
the gig), and the woman's figure raving in despair. The mighty 



LUCILE PRICE LEONARD ii 

Minster with its "city of sepulchers" and its vast recesses is a 
stupendous dream creation from the simple words, 7e Deum. 

With these themes in combination, the fourth setting for 
our jewel is wrought; and no words except DeQuincey's own can 
convey an idea of the splendid heights to which his "inventive and 
constructive genius" has lifted this episode. Suddenly, above 
the tumult of imagery, rises the apparition of the woman's 
figure, clinging to the horns of the altar, "sinking, rising, raving, 
despairing;" and by her side kneels her good angel "that fought 
with Heaven by tears for her deliverance. " 

It would seem that even the "literature of power" could 
rise no higher, that even a master of sustained flights of poetic 
prose might, here, continue to sail on level wing; but with the 
fifth episode we enter the conclusion, and the climax: 

"Then is completed the passion of the mighty fugue. Col- 
umns of heart-shattering music are ascending from the golden 
tubes of the organ, from choir and anti-choir, from trumpet and 
echo of the Dying Trumpeter, from the quick and the dead that 
sing together to God. All the hosts of jubiliation move as with 
one step; they wrap us round with thunders greater than our own 
and as brothers we advance, rendering thanks to God in the 
highest." With this tremendous orchestra of Minster choir, 
anti-choir, and all the Hosts of Heaven, the tragic theme swells 
in one last reverberating unison: 

"A thousand times, amongst the phantoms of sleep, have I 
seen thee entering the gates of the golden dawn — with the secret 
word riding before thee — with the armies of the grave behind 
thee; seen thee sinking, rising, raving, despairing; a thousand 
times in the worlds of sleep have I seen thee followed by God's 
angel through storms; through desert seas; through the darkness 
of quicksands — through dreams and the dreadful revelations that 
are in dreams — only that at the last" (and here the counterpoint 
becomes harmony, pure and clear and true, dying into tender 
silence) " — only that at the last, with one sling of His victorious 
arm. He might snatch thee back from ruin, and might emblazon 
in thy deliverance the endless resurrections of His love." 

Thus does Thomas DeQuincey end his noble composition in 
fugue — a composition as unique as was the man who wrote it; 
a composition as scholarly, as artistic, as poetic as the mind from 
which it sprang. It stands for us a masterpiece of its kind, per- 
fect in form and expression, complete to the last detail. 



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compact and comprehensive, giving the reader an excellent view of the subject as a 
whole, and, at the same time, maintaining the artistic perspective by awarding honor 
where it is due. 

A STUDY OF VIRGIL'S DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURE $1.25 net 

By Mabel L. Anderson, Professor of English, State University of Wyoming 

This is a study in a new field of investigation for the classics. A study which does not 
deal with the linguistics of Virgil's style, but rather with the principles of artistry by 
which he was consciously or unconsciously governed in writing the descriptions of nature 
found in his various poems. 

THE SPIRIT OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION AS REVEALED IN THE POETRY 
OF THE PERIOD _ _ Illustrated. $1.50 net 

By Samuel White Patterson, Lecturer, Columbia University 

A careful study based upon thorough research in the field of our literary and historical 
origin. 

PRESENT DAY AMERICAN POETRY _ }5i.oo net 

By Harry Houston Peckham 

A group of remarkably original and interesting essays on literature. 

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SPOKEN WORD ^1.50 net 

By Delbert Moyer Staley, President of The College of the Spoken JFord, Boston 

Discussing the psychological steps essential to correct teaching, reading, and elocution. 

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MAETERLINCK— ^s Shown in His Plays 
By Granville Forbes Sturgis, Ph. D.. 

By a careful psychological analysis the author has succeeded in humanizing the plays of 
this master dramatist. 

RICHARD G. BADGER - PUBLISHER - BOSTON 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



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